s0ssos

Is it legal to threaten someone with deportation in Canada? What if the person did it wrongly? Is it possible to get the CBSA to look into it?

jugaadkabaap

This thread already had a lengthy discussion on this - for simplicity GA meant 'not allowing pax to fly on his scheduled flight' and leave him back at the airport essentially killing his trip. We can call it deporting / de-boarding or whatever each of us deem fit.

Regardless of the verbiage, I agree that threatening a pax just because s/he tried to ask a GA's name is wrong & should be reviewed. From the description of events by OP - i don't think there was a hostile situation or disruption of duty. (based on description alone as I was never party to the incident).

IMHO, As long as there is no grounds for a threat to the comfort and/or safety of staff (including GA) or other passengers - the pax shouldn't be penalized for asking GA's name.

s0ssos

Canada isn't as litigious as the US, I presume, but I don't know if a court would buy the "he just meant" ... I mean, it isn't like the GA has money to hire good lawyers like Elon Musk
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclope...alifornia.html

jugaadkabaap

Fair point - i am not qualified to speak on the legalities of this subject so i will reserve my comments.

However, i think hypothetically AC will also be a party as GA is essentially representing AC. I believe (&hope) OP had already escalated it to AC via proper channels so that we will know whats the official response.

s0ssos

In America often corporations don't respond unless there is a threat of a lawsuit. Then they respond quickly.

(in terms of saying things, for example it is well established that even though there is freedom of speech you cannot yell "fire" in a crowded theatre and not suffer consequences of the harm it causes to others. And in the US you cannot impersonate a police officer. I don't know how far this goes, but in today's world it gets awfully tricky determing who is who, and who has what powers)

garykung

TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Privilege Card is the only TD Aeroplan credit card that comes with the true priority boarding. TD Aeroplan Visa Infinite Card, which OP has, comes with priority boarding on when OP travels on award.

OP once said:

As an elite member, you know that award miles are limited, especially to non-elite. I am not questioning how OP earned his award miles. But given the circumstance that OP's times in award travel are limited, as well as the restrictive nature of the benefit, how many did AC fail to identify BG2 for OP in case of award travel? Or OP actually got BG2 everything he travel on AC, award or not?

While I believe they are valid questions, they are not relate to OP's current incident. That's why I expressed no comment when something starts questionable.

I am not speculating anything. But based on OP's wording, the flight associated with this incident was an eligible flight. There should be a problem with how the system assigned BG. But this could be affected by AC or TD or even OP.

So if we turn back to OP's incident, if OP's BP failed to show BG2, I would say it started looking reasonable for the male GA to deny BG2 boarding based on the restrictive nature of the benefit, as the GA can't possibly run each pax's PNR to determine if it is a qualified reservation or not.

Why not just fix the issue instead?

How about this:

I work at the airport/for the airline. You're wrong.

jugaadkabaap

OK, now I get it. And i think i should take time to clear this misconception you and many others have.

I am attaching my account screenshot of both Aeroplan and Air Canada Altitude below.


AE redemptions from June 2019 to Jan 2020


Flights credited to AC - i guess only those 6 AQS that i did to get my E35 AQS run challenge.

Based on your logic, I should be an abuser right ? As I am abusing by flashing my cobranded cards because as a non elite i cannot earn enough miles to redeem??? I am an AC elite from end of Nov 2019 because i did a status challenge to AC sometime prior. And I have a thread asking what benefits i should chose as E35 because I hardly fly revenue flights. 80% of my flights are redemption flights.

How I acquire miles is beyond purview of this thread but for some reason majority of FT fails to understand that "Flying" is just one part of Airline Loyalty programs. Airline / Hotel loyalty programs have other aspects that enable members to earn miles and these are crucial to the revenue & float each loyalty program maintains. This is not limited to AC, it expands to every single major loyalty program in the world including UA, AA, CX, AS you name it.

I cannot state for OP but I can state for myself. Your assumptions leading to the conclusion is very much flawed.
I agree the benefit is restrictive BUT just because someone is a non-elite, concluding that he /she cannot earn miles and redeem for flights is flawed.

You are further leading to assume that OP might have got BG2 on revenue fare as well - for which none of us have any proof and OP clearly stated in his opening post a very lengthy verbiage which says he is redeeming aeroplan miles for a MRTW. Any assumptions beyond it is un-necessary imho.

It can be affected by multiple reasons (i explained major 3 ones in one of my earlier post in this thread) but responsibility of that lies with AC as it is an AC guaranteed benefit. AC include its tech, ops, staff everything.

A pax asking for a guaranteed AC benefit to an AC representative because AC systems failed to automate it on his BP is fair and logical.

In this case - is it reasonable to assume that the GA will take 90% less time to do a PNR lookup than argue with the pax and shout and cause a scene. As per opening post, there was a lot of back and forth - a PNR lookup will take hardly a minute.
Albeit my limitation to substantiate my following statement - I believe in almost all organizations especially customer centric roles - the benefit of doubt is given to the customer unless his / her profile is flagged for abuse. Outright denying benefit without even trying to look up is wrong especially when pax shows the card and claims his benefit. The GA further went to say "this card does not come with priority boarding" which is outright wrong. The GA in question (despite 5-6 year of being priority agent and what not) does not have a clue on Zonal boarding criteria. It is clearly listed here https://www.aircanada.com/ca/en/aco/...g-by-zone.html and it includes TD® Aeroplan® Visa Infinite* Card

Well, agreed - why hasn't they fixed it ? Cobranded CC had been in place for years and years. Changing systems take a lot of time especially for legacy implementations - we all know what chaos arose with Amadeus switch. The business may decide that, it's better to let the pax board on case by case basis and not fully revamp system because former is a much more cost effective resolution. I cannot affirm that AC already did this as I cannot validate it. But based on few instances where I was advised to use the shortcut of flashing my AE card with BP - i am inclined to believe something of this might have been in place

mapleg

You have led a charmed life if one of your biggest concerns is boarding in zone 2 or 4 on an award flight in economy.

jugaadkabaap

Yet another belittlement lol. I am amused by some of these comments & i had expressed my views earlier so not trying to repeat them.

Standing for a guaranteed benefit is same regardless whether a non elite is flying award flights or a SE100 MM flying revenue. It doesn't make a difference.

Why should I be bothered about zone boarding when i fly F or J ? Tbh whenever i fly premium, idgaf on zone boarding because i am almost always sure that there will be space in my overhead bin or in worst case the FA will figure out something. I rather spent some more time at the lounge enjoying a drink than deal with zonal arguments.

But when i fly economy (award) - I am focused on zone 2 (as guaranteed by my cobranded card) because I rather board early so that i have priority access to overhead bin space.

Now my reasons will be different from your reasons & its okay. Each of us have our flying preferences & priorities.

mapleg

It is not a belittlement..it is just not that big a deal to me. Flew TAP earlier this week on economy flight and did not get premium. Boarding I was entitled to. No biggie, and did not need to start a flyertalk thread to complain about it.’

jugaadkabaap

To each to their own. I believe OP made the thread not just because of denied benefit but because of the experience he faced especially wrt rudeness of the GA and threat to "deport" or "de-board" him from his scheduled flight.

s0ssos

And the very fact you are mentioning it? Don't you know there are starving children in Africa?

vernonc

If everything is as the OP described then the boarding privilege is immaterial. Customer asks a customer facing airline rep for their name then the rep should provide it. For whatever business reason the customer may have. Even if the customer is incorrect. The agent can deal with the complaint later and provide their own facts. AC agents have a very robust union too. What should have been a simple interaction was turned into a circus by a belligerent agent.

canadiancow

Exactly.

I once asked a rouge FA for her email. A week later, when I sent in an extremely complimentary letter to someone fairly senior, I BCC'd the FA. She replied and said she had assumed I was going to get her in trouble for something. But even with that mindset, she had no issue handing over a card with her name and email.

The only reason I can see someone refuse to provide their first name is if they know they're wrong AND want to hide what they've done.

garykung

Oh my...

As I said, I am not questioning how miles have been earned by anyone. Also - I don't know what credit cards you have. You did not say whether you have flashed your cobrand card for the benefit. Bottom line, you are not the one complaining.

FWIW - it is never an issue about you. You simply take it way too personal.

I did not assume anything. But I do have questions...

The benefit is not a guarantee. TD has made this very clear:

"3 All Air Canada benefits are fulfilled in whole or in part by Air Canada, or its designated affiliates or other third parties, and are subject to change at any time. The Toronto-Dominion Bank and its affiliates are not responsible for fulfilling these benefits. For more details about these benefits, please contact Air Canada directly..."

This is even true for Altitude benefits.

Per my estimate, the flight should take 15-20 minutes to complete boarding. Your so-called "hardly a minute" can significantly delay the entire process and eventually result delay in departure.

Now I have to ask you - are you flashing a card that has the benefits in a restrictive nature?

Agree. But it is not the case here. OP's posts did express that he care about the boarding privilege.

I would say this is an incorrect assumption. I simply won't speculate the real reason for the non-disclosure.